Chapter 16
Sixteen
Delaney
I wake up the next morning to Mac's phone buzzing insistently on my nightstand. His arm tightens around my waist, pulling me closer against his bare chest as he groans into my neck.
"Ignore it," he mumbles, his morning voice rough with sleep.
I want to. God, I want to stay in this perfect bubble we've created in my little apartment above the bookshop, where nothing exists except tangled sheets and the memory of last night.
Where Mac Sullivan isn't a famous hockey player and I'm not the small-town girl who bet she could make him believe in love.
The phone stops, then immediately starts again.
Mac sighs and reaches over me, his body stretching across mine in a way that makes my breath catch. "It's my mom."
He sits up, running a hand through his dark hair as he answers. "Hey, Ma."
I can hear her voice through the speaker, urgent and emotional. Mac's shoulders tense with each word.
"Today? But I thought..." He glances at me, then away. "Yeah. I know I missed Thanksgiving. Yeah, okay. I'll be there."
When he hangs up, he won't meet my eyes.
"What's wrong?" I ask, sitting up and pulling the sheet around myself.
"Tomorrow's Lily's birthday." His voice is flat, carefully controlled. "My family's holding a memorial service in Boston. I guess it's imperative that I go."
The weight of it hits me. While we've been playing house and testing romance tropes, my best friend’s birthday has been slowly creeping up, and I didn’t even think of it.
I'm a horrible friend, and an even worse fake girlfriend.
"Of course you should." I reach for his hand, but he's already standing, moving away from the bed. From me.
I did receive the invite from his mom a few weeks ago, when he first arrived in Millbrook Falls. But I haven't even thought of it since. I wasn't sure where I would stand with Mac by now, or if I'd still be welcome. Unfortunately, I'm still just as lost.
Mac’s sigh pulls me from my spiraling thoughts. "I should leave soon. Beat traffic."
He's shutting down, building those walls back up brick by brick. I recognize the signs now—the way his jaw sets, how his shoulders square. He's preparing to leave not just physically, but emotionally too.
"Take me with you," I blurt out.
The words escape before I can stop them. Mac freezes, his back to me as he reaches for his jeans.
"What?”
"Lily was my friend, too." I scramble out of bed, grabbing his shirt from the floor and pulling it on. It smells like him. Like clean soap and something indefinably Mac. “One of my best friends. I was going to go anyway. Why not drive in together?"
He turns around slowly, and the look on his face nearly breaks my heart. Pain and longing and regret and fear all twisted together.
Shaking his head, he dismisses the idea. "You don't understand what you're asking."
"Then explain it to me. I'm not missing her birthday because of whatever is going on between us."
"Delaney, this isn't..." He gestures between us, at the rumpled bed, at me wearing his shirt. "This isn't some romance novel where the girl meets the family and everyone lives happily ever after. This is real life, and real life is messy and fucking painful."
The words sting. Especially after last night. But I push forward anyway. "I know that. But friends support each other through painful things. Besides, I've already met your parents."
"Friends." He repeats the word in a flat tone, his eyes crinkling like it tastes bitter on his tongue as he glances down at his shirt on my otherwise naked body. Whatever we are now, friends probably isn't the best way to describe it.
But I'm not letting him deter my point.
"Yes, friends. Aren't we allowed to be friends? Underneath all this bet nonsense and sexual tension and whatever the hell happened last night? You can support me through the pain of being surrounded by strangers who are obviously out of my league, and I can support you through the pain of facing the life you’ve been avoiding. "
Something flickers in his eyes. Hope, maybe. Or terror. "You have no idea what you'd be walking into."
"So, tell me."
He stares at me for a long moment, then sinks onto the edge of my bed like all the fight has gone out of him.
"My family blames me for the accident. They don't say it outright, but they think it.
I was driving too fast, or I should have seen the other car coming, or I should have made Lily wear her seatbelt differently.
Hell, they don't even know why she was with me in the first place.
My teammates will be there, and they're pissed because we're probably going to miss the playoffs without me. My ex-girlfriend will be there because she’s always fucking there, and she'll remind everyone of who I was before I became this broken… thing."
He looks up at me, and his eyes are devastated. "And you'll see all of it. You'll see exactly why I don't deserve nice things like bookshops and small towns and women who believe in happy endings."
My heart cracks wide open. I kneel in front of him, putting my hands on his knees.
"Mac Sullivan, do you think any of that scares me?"
"It should."
"Well, it doesn't." I lean forward, forcing him to meet my eyes. "Fuck those people. All of them. That's what Lily would say. And if you think I'm going to let you disappear into your grief spiral alone on your sister's birthday—on my best friend’s birthday—you obviously don't know me at all."
He searches my face like he's looking for the catch, the moment I'll realize this is too much and run.
"Why?" he asks quietly.
"Lots of reasons. Because Lily would want someone there who remembers her laugh. Because your family might blame you, but I know how dearly she loved you. You were an amazing brother to her. Because maybe you need someone who sees who you were before the accident, not just who you've become after."
His hands come up to cup my face, thumbs stroking across my cheekbones. "You're going to get hurt."
"Probably. But that's my choice to make."
For a moment, I think he's going to kiss me. Instead, he rests his forehead against mine and exhales shakily.
"Okay, fine. We'll leave in an hour. I'm driving."
Letter #8: Left at the bookshop counter
Delaney,
I've been staring at this blank page for an hour, trying to find words for what happened between us last night. How do you write about something that felt like coming back to life after months of just… existing?
When you offered to let me stay at your place, I thought I could handle sharing your bed platonically.
I told myself it was just another trope to test, another box to check off in our ridiculous bet, even though you promised it wasn’t.
For some reason, it’s easier for me to play pretend than it is to admit that the lines between fantasy and reality have been severely blurred.
I was wrong about a lot of things, but I was especially wrong about that.
The way you curled into me in your sleep, completely trusting and soft and warm… God, I haven't felt peace like that since before the accident. For the first time in months, I slept through the night without nightmares about twisted metal and blood and the sound Lily made when she…
I don’t know. Somehow, this bubbly, happy woman who sprouts flowers where she walks and probably shits rainbows is able to chase away all the ghosts that haunt me.
I'm sorry. I don't mean to burden you with my darkness, especially not after something so beautiful.
But here's what I need you to know: last night wasn't just physical for me.
It was coming home to something I didn't know I was looking for.
When you whispered my name in the dark, when you touched my scars like they were something precious instead of ugly reminders of failure—you saw me, Delaney.
Not the hockey player or the grieving brother or the broken man hiding from his life. Just me.
I know this complicates everything. I know we're supposed to be keeping this fake, maintaining distance, treating it all like an experiment. But I can't pretend anymore that what I feel for you is anything less than terrifying and real and completely overwhelming.
You're changing me, sunshine. Making me believe I might deserve good things after all.
Anyway, I’ll see you in a little while. I hope you’re ready to become a part of my world.
Mac
P.S. You talk in your sleep.